We’ve living in a sports town that’s grown spoiled, and fast. When the Maple Leafs and Raptors begin their respective playoff runs in the coming days, they’ll be playing with reasonable expectations of considerable success.
The Leafs are slight underdogs against the Bruins, but you haven’t been paying attention to the unpredictable nature of the Stanley Cup playoffs if you’re making some contrarian’s case that they’re somehow incapable of going deep into the tournament. And as for the Raptors — they’ve come to the point in their evolution, in their fifth straight trip to the post-season, that their fan base won’t consider the season a success unless they find themselves playing in the NBA final for the first time in franchise history.